Chapter 2 considers some moderate and radical feminist theories from Latin America. It begins with the early vindication of equal rights for women by Sor Juana de la Cruz. Since her feminist theory did not claim that obtaining such rights is contingent on a drastic change of the sociopolitical and economic order, it belongs in the same category of moderate feminism widely advocated by women at the turn of the twentieth century. This chapter contends that, unlike Sor Juana’s feminism, the present-day “scientific” feminism of Roxana Kreimer, also in the moderate category, lacks the support of plausible arguments. Contra Kreimer, no evidence is found for her claim that many inequalities between the sexes amount to inequities (i.e., unjust inequalities). To debunk radical feminisms, Kreimer needs to take a close look at these doctrines, something that this chapter undertakes by focusing on the liberationist feminisms of Ofelia Schutte and Enrique Dussel. Each of these comes out as closer to ideological propaganda than to philosophical inquiry.

During the second half of the twentieth century, some Latin American intellectuals put theology and philosophy at the service of explaining and solving the social and economic disparities facing the region. Paradigm results of this development were the liberation theology of Gustavo Gutiėrrez and the liberation philosophy of Enrique Dussel. Chapter 9 considers these attempts to establish the causes of oppression and become the voice of a vaguely defined group of people, the Latin American poor. Other categories of liberation theology and philosophy examined here include the center-periphery distinction and the very notion of liberation, which are adaptations of categories from dependency theory and Marxism respectively. The chapter argues that neither liberation theology nor liberation philosophy can accommodate strong intuitions about justice. They also rely on discredited assumptions from dependency theory. In addition, liberation philosophy faces some problems of its own, since it makes misleading and often false claims about events and rival philosophical theories. To illustrate these problems, the chapter looks closely at Dussel’s claim that all Western philosophy suffers from ideological contamination.

World society analysis explains change in terms of dissemination of ideas. However, many have insisted that Western ideas have played an outsized role and therefore current world society is illegitimate. To avoid this conclusion, we must show that world society analysis offers resources to find that role reasonably palatable. We can offer three responses: the Western tradition contains a plethora of approaches; the recent predominance of Western ideas is embedded into a human web that has unfolded for much longer; Western ideas are not alien elements infringing upon other traditions, but responses to earlier stages. The most important response is that ideas whose transmission involves coercion can be authentically appropriated. With this understanding of world society, we can formulate the conception of the political philosopher as a global discussant. However, some of the theoretical machinery to formulate a global public reason standpoint can only be developed in Part III.